On 05/16/2018 09:35 PM, Webert de Souza Lima wrote: > We'll soon do benchmarks of sdbox vs mdbox over cephfs with bluestore > backend. > We'll have to do some some work on how to simulate user traffic, for writes > and readings. That seems troublesome. I would appreciate seeing these results ! > Thanks for the plugins recommendations. I'll take the change and ask you > how is the SIS status? We have used it in the past and we've had some > problems with it. I am using it since Dec 2016 with mdbox, with no issue at all (I am currently using Dovecot 2.2.27-3 from Debian Stretch) The only config I use is mail_attachment_dir, the rest lies as default (mail_attachment_min_size = 128k, mail_attachment_fs = sis posix, ail_attachment_hash = %{sha1}) The backend storage is a local filesystem, and there is only one Dovecot instance > > Regards, > > Webert Lima > DevOps Engineer at MAV Tecnologia > *Belo Horizonte - Brasil* > *IRC NICK - WebertRLZ* > > > On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM Jack <ceph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Many (most ?) filesystems does not store multiple files on the same block >> >> Thus, with sdbox, every single mail (you know, that kind of mail with 10 >> lines in it) will eat an inode, and a block (4k here) >> mdbox is more compact on this way >> >> Another difference: sdbox removes the message, mdbox does not : a single >> metadata update is performed, which may be packed with others if many >> files are deleted at once >> >> That said, I do not have experience with dovecot + cephfs, nor have made >> tests for sdbox vs mdbox >> >> However, and this is a bit out of topic, I recommend you look at the >> following dovecot's features (if not already done), as they are awesome >> and will help you a lot: >> - Compression (classic, https://wiki.dovecot.org/Plugins/Zlib) >> - Single-Instance-Storage (aka sis, aka "attachment deduplication" : >> https://www.dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2013-December/094276.html) >> >> Regards, >> On 05/16/2018 08:37 PM, Webert de Souza Lima wrote: >>> I'm sending this message to both dovecot and ceph-users ML so please >> don't >>> mind if something seems too obvious for you. >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I have a question for both dovecot and ceph lists and below I'll explain >>> what's going on. >>> >>> Regarding dbox format (https://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailboxFormat/dbox), >> when >>> using sdbox, a new file is stored for each email message. >>> When using mdbox, multiple messages are appended to a single file until >> it >>> reaches/passes the rotate limit. >>> >>> I would like to understand better how the mdbox format impacts on IO >>> performance. >>> I think it's generally expected that fewer larger file translate to less >> IO >>> and more troughput when compared to more small files, but how does >> dovecot >>> handle that with mdbox? >>> If dovecot does flush data to storage upon each and every new email is >>> arrived and appended to the corresponding file, would that mean that it >>> generate the same ammount of IO as it would do with one file per message? >>> Also, if using mdbox many messages will be appended to a said file >> before a >>> new file is created. That should mean that a file descriptor is kept open >>> for sometime by dovecot process. >>> Using cephfs as backend, how would this impact cluster performance >>> regarding MDS caps and inodes cached when files from thousands of users >> are >>> opened and appended all over? >>> >>> I would like to understand this better. >>> >>> Why? >>> We are a small Business Email Hosting provider with bare metal, self >> hosted >>> systems, using dovecot for servicing mailboxes and cephfs for email >> storage. >>> >>> We are currently working on dovecot and storage redesign to be in >>> production ASAP. The main objective is to serve more users with better >>> performance, high availability and scalability. >>> * high availability and load balancing is extremely important to us * >>> >>> On our current model, we're using mdbox format with dovecot, having >>> dovecot's INDEXes stored in a replicated pool of SSDs, and messages >> stored >>> in a replicated pool of HDDs (under a Cache Tier with a pool of SSDs). >>> All using cephfs / filestore backend. >>> >>> Currently there are 3 clusters running dovecot 2.2.34 and ceph Jewel >>> (10.2.9-4). >>> - ~25K users from a few thousands of domains per cluster >>> - ~25TB of email data per cluster >>> - ~70GB of dovecot INDEX [meta]data per cluster >>> - ~100MB of cephfs metadata per cluster >>> >>> Our goal is to build a single ceph cluster for storage that could expand >> in >>> capacity, be highly available and perform well enough. I know, that's >> what >>> everyone wants. >>> >>> Cephfs is an important choise because: >>> - there can be multiple mountpoints, thus multiple dovecot instances on >>> different hosts >>> - the same storage backend is used for all dovecot instances >>> - no need of sharding domains >>> - dovecot is easily load balanced (with director sticking users to the >>> same dovecot backend) >>> >>> On the upcoming upgrade we intent to: >>> - upgrade ceph to 12.X (Luminous) >>> - drop the SSD Cache Tier (because it's deprecated) >>> - use bluestore engine >>> >>> I was said on freenode/#dovecot that there are many cases where SDBOX >> would >>> perform better with NFS sharing. >>> In case of cephfs, at first, I wouldn't think that would be true because >>> more files == more generated IO, but thinking about what I said in the >>> beginning regarding sdbox vs mdbox that could be wrong. >>> >>> Any thoughts will be highlt appreciated. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Webert Lima >>> DevOps Engineer at MAV Tecnologia >>> *Belo Horizonte - Brasil* >>> *IRC NICK - WebertRLZ* >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ceph-users mailing list >>> ceph-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx >>> http://lists.ceph.com/listinfo.cgi/ceph-users-ceph.com >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ceph-users mailing list >> ceph-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> http://lists.ceph.com/listinfo.cgi/ceph-users-ceph.com >> > _______________________________________________ ceph-users mailing list ceph-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.ceph.com/listinfo.cgi/ceph-users-ceph.com